


The Curious Nature of Souls

by junko



Series: Scatter and Howl [3]
Category: Bleach
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-13
Updated: 2015-01-13
Packaged: 2018-03-07 10:44:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,936
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3171806
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/junko/pseuds/junko
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Byakuya, Rukia and Ukitake discuss the curious nature of souls; Renji's quiet day gets a nasty shock.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Curious Nature of Souls

Byakuya warmed his toes under Ukitake’s office kotatsu; while Rukia speculated on her own question and Ukitake read Renji’s Soul Record.

“We know you can forcibly separate a zanpakutō from its wielder, but are there cases where a zanpakutō rejected someone or left them willingly?” Rukia looked first to her captain, whose head was bent, raptly reading the record, and then to Byakuya.

“None I’ve heard of,” Byakuya said. “We would have to check the Kuchiki archives. If it has happened, someone may have written about it and, if so, we would have a record of it. But the difference here is that Zangetsu sacrificed himself for his wielder. If anything, it was an act of pure loyalty.”

“True,” Ukitake said, “Though Zangetsu’s origin is very murky. We can hardly forget that Kurosaki’s first blade was really just a twisted manifestation of Sode no Shirayuki.” 

Rukia paled a little to hear her own captain so calmly discuss her crime.

“Except that’s not true,” Byakuya said. “His blade had neither the shape nor powers of Sode no Shirayuki. Ichigo Kurosaki could hardly have achieved bankai on a temporarily borrowed blade; he did not call out Sode no Shirayuki, after all. Moreover, Sode no Shirayuki never abandoned Rukia, or, if the zanpakutō did, it was only momentarily. Obviously, Sode no Shirayuki returned as soon as the restrictions were removed from Rukia. What Rukia did that fateful night, merely awakened Ichigo’s own potential, which means that, all along, no crime was committed.”

And Ichigo would have inherited his powers from Isshin Shiba, at any rate. 

“The act itself was a crime, nii-sama,” Rukia said miserably. “Even if it didn’t work the way I intended.”

“The victors always revise history to suit them, Rukia,” Ukitake said. But, when Byakuya turned a sharp gaze on his former captain, Ukitake raised his hands as though in surrender and put on a big smile. “You must admit it’s true, Byakuya!”

“Actually, I do not. As the keeper of the archive, I believe the truth remains, albeit sometimes hidden,” Byakuya said quite seriously. “Besides, it was not my intention just now to revise the truth, merely to uncover it. We all know now that Aizen had seized control of Central 46 shortly after Rukia was assigned to the Human World. He told us so himself. We cannot say what the true Central 46 may have ruled in this case and whether or not they would have considered the extenuating circumstances.”

Ukitake snorted, “You do remember that no one batted an eye at their fickle decisions, right? Not even when the execution time kept changing randomly, which should have been suspicious. Yet, none of us thought anything of it. We all clearly felt Central behaved exactly as they always do.”

There was a surprising note of bitterness in Ukitake’s tone. Byakuya remembered that Ukitake and Kyōraku had destroyed the Sokyoku, an act of treason. It would never swing its executing blade on a member of the Gotei again. Ever.

Had they had some personal reason to wish that so? Something beyond trying to save Rukia?

Perhaps Byakuya was reading too much into Ukitake’s tone. It was just as likely that Ukitake felt guilt for not having been the one to rescue his subordinate or see through Aizen’s lies sooner. 

“Yes,” Byakuya said carefully. “That is so.”

Rukia must have noticed something too, because she returned to her original thoughts, “I hope all this means that Zangetsu is still with Ichigo or fighting to return to him.”

“They achieved so much together in such a short time,” Byakuya assured Rukia. “I have no doubt. In fact, if Sode no Shirayuki could trigger his awakening once, perhaps she could again, once sufficient time for healing has passed. Don’t lose hope, Rukia.”

Ukitake was watching Byakuya curiously. “I would have thought that you would find Ichigo to be an anomaly, an aberration, and be pleased that his power seems spent and gone.”

Byakuya blinked in surprise. “No,” he said simply. “I owe Kurosaki Ichigo for opening my eyes and for his dogged support of my family, of my pride and joy.”

“Ah,” Ukitake smiled, clapping his hands together. “That’s so heart-warming!”

Rukia blushed.

Byakuya sipped his hot chocolate as Ukitake continued to smile at them. When Ukitake seemed to be winding down, Byakuya asked, “What do you make of Renji’s Soul Record, Taicho?”

“Renji’s?” Rukia nearly choked as she tried not to spit up her drink. “Why do you have Renji’s Soul Record, nii-sama?”

“It was a ‘gift” from our dear Aunt Masama,” Byakuya said. “I believe she hopes to sufficiently horrify me that I will abandon my romantic interests.”

“Did it work?” Rukia asked.

“It is no surprise to me that Renji is a rebellious, troublesome soul,” Byakuya said simply. “Or that he might have always been such.”

“This is a little more than that and, as I told you before, this should’ve been impossible for your aunt to have gotten her hands on,” Ukitake said, but he picked up the papers and shuffled through them again, “Why so little about Zabimaru, I wonder? I had thought the original purpose of keeping records like this was to better understand the nature of our zanpakutō, especially those that come up out of the Rukongai.”

That was why they existed? Byakuya supposed there would fewer questions about why zanpakutō manifested among the Pure Souls. It was, if Byakuya considered it, curious that they might attach themselves to those supposedly uninteresting, ‘recyclable’ souls that no one bothered feeding or even sheltering.

“Maybe this is Zabimaru’s first time around,” Rukia offered.

“It seems so,” Ukitake said, setting the papers back down. “But a new zanpakutō soul? You would suspect that would be far more interesting than anything Renji might have been or done in his human lives.”

“Are you suggesting zanpakutō are… re-used?” Byakuya’s hand slipped to where he’d laid Senbonzakura beside him on the floor. His palm covered the zanpakutō protectively.

“That’s the question that the Soul Records are meant to answer!” Ukitake beamed. “Are Rukongai zanpakutō recycled along with their human souls? Where do they go? Are they used here by a twin soul, or do they dissipate, or hide inside their original soul and wait for a Soul Society rebirth? Why don’t the names stay the same? Do they automatically shift and change as their wielders' souls shift through their incarnations? If none of this is true and each zanpakutō is unique, why do so many powerful new ones attach themselves to…? ” Ukitake stopped to take a sip of the hot chocolate and give Rukia a little look. “Well, you see! There’s just so much about them that we don’t know, despite the fact that they are our most intimate companions.”

Ukitake was too kind-hearted to finish the question that Byakuya had heard asked enough times among the noble houses: Why are so many strong captaincies in the hands of those from so far out in the Rukongai? Why are there not more nobles of the same strengths and skills to choose from? Why are such vile, lowborn, un-Pure creatures graced with zanpakutō at all?

That last, Byakuya could only hear in his aunt’s shrill tones—though once, he might have wondered the same.

“Fundamentally,” Ukitake said, sounding very much like the elder captain, “The question that the Soul Records ask is ‘where does shinigami power come from? Who manifests it and why?’”

“Could the powers I awoke in Ichigo be from a past life in the Soul Society?” Rukia wondered. She’d finished her hot chocolate some time ago and was ripping little sections from her Styrofoam cup. Byakuya wanted to tell her not to fuss, that it was unladylike, but Ukitake spoke first.

“It’s a possibility, isn’t it?” Ukitake said. “And he’s so young. He could have been someone we knew.”

“That doesn’t seem possible. There was so much peace. Hardly anyone….” Byakuya stopped because it occurred to Byakuya that both his father and grandfather had died recently. Renji’s Soul Record clearly showed that the time between reincarnations was not instant. Byakuya’s face drained of all the blood. “No. I will not entertain that idea at all.”

“Oh, nii-sama, there’s nothing about Ichigo that’s anything like a Kuchiki!” Rukia said. “Trust me.”

She said it with such certainty that Byakuya briefly felt torn between being offended at the idea of Ichigo being the reincarnation of his relatives and Rukia so certain that Ichigo shared none of their qualities.

“You never knew Byakuya’s father,” Ukitake said kindly. “Sojoun was a delight—“

“But not reborn as Ichigo Kurosaki,” Byakuya insisted, standing up. He held his hand out for Renji’s Soul Record, as he said, “I will leave the two of you to your fanciful speculations. I have work to do,” he said, though if he did, it was only with his family. His shift had ended with lunch. But, Byakuya couldn’t stand staying another minute and either hearing stories of a father he’d been taught to blame for his own death or these ridiculous ideas about reincarnation. It was bad enough to have run into Hisana/Hana in the Human World. Byakuya missed his parents often just as keenly. If he thought he could see them again…

Ukitake stood and handed over the record. “Oh, Byakuya, you know I was just teasing you.”

“Please don’t, Taicho,” Byakuya said as he had a thousand times when he was stationed at the Thirteenth. “You should know by now I never take it well.”

Ukitake looked sad and gave Byakuya an unwanted pat on the shoulder. “Ah, yes, I should. I really should.”

Rukia started to make a formal bow, but Byakuya took her hand and squeezed it goodbye. “Will you come for dinner?”

She looked confused, “I… isn’t it required? I mean, with all the family around?”

Byakuya shook his head. ‘That’s my burden. I would like you there because I prefer your company and I think you would enjoy seeing cousin Hirako now that she is in Academy reds, but you have duties here and with Ichigo Kurosaki.”

“Oh, nii-sama, of course I can come. I usually go to see Ichigo very late and I can’t stand to stay long. He can’t hear me, anyway.”

Ukitake had left them to walk to the gate alone. “You don’t go in gigai?”

“Oh, erm, I have some trust issues with the gigai that Urahara-san provides,” she said with a little blush.

“Ah, of course,” Byakuya said. “But how else will you visit him once his powers are gone?”

Rukia looked very sad, though her eyes remained dry. So fierce, Byakuya thought, like Hisana. “I’m not sure I will. I think it might be best for both of us if there’s a clean break.”

Byakuya was surprised, but then again, if she wished for him to regain his powers, refusing to see Ichigo at all was the surest way to prompt action. After all, Rukia had told Ichigo not to follow her when they’d arrested her, too. Perhaps she knew best how to motivate the boy.

“Very well,” Byakuya said. At the gate they said their goodbyes. The guard seemed to be watching them with a little smirk that Byakuya didn’t quite understand. As he left, Byakuya could swear he heard someone giggling at his back.

#

Renji’s shift being over, he headed across the road to the local izakaya. He knew that Byakuya might invite him to dinner, so he didn’t eat much, but it’d been a long enough day that a few quiet beers seemed in order. 

When Renji made his way back across the street a couple of hours later, he knew something was very wrong. Spiritual pressure that felt more like a low fog had slithered in wetly clung to every surface.

Not outwardly, but… deeply, where it set Zabimaru’s hairs on edge.

“Oi,” Renji shouted to the gate guard, “What the hell’s going on?”

“Captain Kurotsuchi. He said he had an appointment with the captain, but…”

“But?” Now Renji’s teeth were on edge.

The gate guard looked very guilty. Ironically, Renji recognized him at That Guy, the Guy with all the opinions about Renji’s level of spiritual ‘cleanliness.’ 

“C’mon, spit it out,” Renji demanded. 

“I… was so thrown. I mean, Captain Kurotsuchi was standing there pinching that butterfly and it was flapping so… pathetically, I… I didn’t have the heart to tell him that Kuchiki-taicho left for the Thirteenth some time ago.”

Renji couldn’t even believe this moron “Are you suggesting that Mayuri Kurotsuchi is wandering around _our_ Division without an escort?”

Real terror started settling in Renji’s bones because he remembered how that sick fuck used to troll around the hospital wards of the Fourth whenever the word went out that a large contingent of Eleventh Division soldiers had landed there for one reason or another. It wasn’t even his Division, yet, somehow, sometimes, people went missing….

People who never came back.

Now this guy was poking around in the Sixth? Renji’s Sixth? Even if he came for something other than bodies, Renji didn’t care. Whatever he was after, it wasn’t his to take. And, it was not going to get taken on Renji’s watch, even if his shift ended hours ago.

“Well?” Renji demanded to the still sputtering gate guard, “Did you do your fucking duty and at least make sure he was escorted or not??”

“Uh…”

That was all Renji needed, he took off like a shot. He moved as fast as he could without actual shunpo, toward the spot that emanated the most spiritual stench. Zabimaru directed him toward the captain’s office, where Mayuri seemed to have let himself in. The door hung wide open. Inside, Renji could hear paper rustling.

What the actual fuck?

Was Mayuri helping himself to the captain’s files?

Renji stepped in only to be suddenly stopped. He found himself chest to face with Lieutenant Nemu. She had the audacity to try to stand between him and what was clearly the most egregious trespass in the history of ever. 

“Oi,” he said to her and Mayuri. He could look over the top of her head to where Mayuri was, in point of fact, clawing his way through the file cabinets Byakuya kept at the end of the bookcases. His fingers moved through the paper like a spider rolling up its victim. “You can’t waltz in here like this and just help yourself to our stuff. What the hell do you think you’re doing?”

Mayuri didn’t even look up. Though one of his claw-like hands stopped shuffling through the files long enough to produce a squashed looking message-butterfly from somewhere inside his captain’s haori. The pathetic thing spasmed between his fingers like it was in its death throes. “I was invited,” he said.

“Bullshit,” Renji spat angrily.

At that, Mayuri glanced at him. Renji briefly regretted his vehemence. There was nothing so frightening and foul as to be pinned under that jaundiced glare. It took all of Renji’s resolve to glare back as fiercely as he could. Zabimaru hissed warningly, as well.

Mayuri slammed the file cabinet drawer shut with an eerie kind of finality. He turned and tucked his skeletal arms into the sleeves of his haori. “Taking Zabimaru back to the lab would be far more interesting than the filthy Soul Record at any rate.”

Renji couldn’t stop himself from backing out the door a pace now. He shielded Zabimaru with his hand. The baboon howled in protest. “Wait, what?”

“Someone has stolen a Soul Record that belongs to me. I want to know where it came from and whether or not it has my private notes on it. Your captain suggested it was somehow incomplete or lacking,” Mayuri said as though all of this were Renji’s fault somehow. “I find that inconceivable. The lack must be glaring if any fool can see it. Therefore, I can only assume the thief is an imbecile on my staff too stupid to be able to break the encryption of my personal files. But I need to compare the files to be certain.”

Renji thought that sounded vaguely reasonable, or could be, if it wasn’t coming out of the mouth of a guy painted up like some horror circus clown. “How’d you even hear about this? The captain only just got it this morning.”

Mayuri rolled his eyes, which was both disgusting to watch and insulting as hell. He let out a very long sigh and then spoke slowly, as if to a child. “I showed you the butterfly, Abarai. Your captain is giving the Soul Record to me.”

“What?”

Mayuri smacked his forehead, as though covering his face in despair. “Nemu, attempt to explain it slow enough for this half-wit beast to comprehend.”

“Fuck you,” Renji said before she could open her mouth. “I know what you said, but I don’t understand how that could be. Captain Kuchiki told me he was going to burn it.”

“Obviously, he lied to you,” Mayuri said. Then, as though disinterested in the conversation, Mayuri’s shoulders slumped and he turned to stare at the file cabinets. His toe lashed out and he kicked them, muttering, “Thief.”

Even though Renji was reeling from the fact that Mayuri might be right and that Byakuya might have lied to him, Renji saw an opportunity to give back to Aunt Masama. He wasn’t going to waste it: “Listen up, the person you want is Lady Masama Kuchiki,” Renji said. “She hired your thief. I’ll find her fucking address for you, if you give me five.”

Mayuri’s eyes lit up. “Acceptable.”


End file.
